Your Story Alive

YSA

EWI Worldwide

Check out these photos from the new Nike Store in Shanghai. Made of recycled materials, it is built to be a flexible, transformable space for any promotion or event Nike may hold. Better yet - it's built to be cradle to cradle. Materials are not glued together, so can live on as other recycleable materials, or keep changing shape forever as the store evolves.

In a city of lights and billboards it can be difficult to set your brand apart from another. IBM has managed to do just that by creating advertisements that not only allows them to fight through the clutter of a big city but also stay on target with their brand messaging.

By creating 3D advertisements at various points within the city IBM managed to get people sitting, walking and taking shelter with their outdoor ads.

In a place like Slovenia, rolling hills and peaked-roof houses dominate the landscape. However, in a collaborative project by OFIS Arhitekti, Sadar Vuga Arhitekti,Bevk Perovic Arhitekti andDekleva Gregoric Arhitekti, this picturesque scenery is now juxtaposed with a sleek, modern, and very cool building in the town of Vitanje.The Cultural Center of European Space Technologies is a series of stacked and slanted circular elements offering exhibition space, an auditorium, and a space technology research centre.It’s interlocking rings, and glass cylinders, seem to make the building float and rotate in place offering dynamic movement in this traditional townscape.

The interior, constructed of raw concrete and accentuated by large, vertical glass panels is the perfect setting to display iconic imagery, artifacts, and hold conferences, and club activities dedicated to space and the study of it.

Check out this article from Wired magazine, Empowering Patients Through Design, on why permanent installations need to begin with the end-user in mind. One of our favorite excerpts:

"The projects are part of a growing movement called human-centered design, which aims to redefine how people experience health care by focusing on their specific needs. Because the rehab center Graves used served mostly people in wheelchairs, it should have had electrical outlets higher on the wall and mirrors lower. But, he said, it didn’t have either of those things.

Frustrated, he asked his doctor to sit in a wheelchair and try to brush his teeth or shave. Of course, the doctor couldn’t do either of those things. Graves suggested he hire smarter architects and build a model room to make facilities better suited to the people they were meant to serve. It didn’t happen."

Whether a permanent installation, a temporary exhibit or the interior of a building - as the article says, it's an often overlooked but absolutely critical need. When it comes to looking at your guests, also appeal to all ages, abilities and the way that they will be interacting. For example, children interact with museum exhibits drastically different than adults do; or, doctors visiting your booth may interact differently than entrepreneurs, marketing or business developers would.

Linked here (and photo above) is an example of a program that we developed for the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's hospital that shows one example of creating multiple experiences that speak to different interactivity levels, all in one space.

Debuting at SEMA Show 2011, the Nitto Tire USA booth was a unique in-line exhibit that used fabric to create walls and archways, as well as touch-screen interactives that were programed to work within Nitto Tire USA's pre- and post-marketing efforts, enhance its marketing relationships and ensure that media and blogger coverage was on-message.

According to the lead designer on the project, Jon DeGorsky, the "Digital Passport experience allowed users to sign up online for a QR code to be sent to their cell phone or other smart device. From there, the user would scan the code on a tire stand within the space. After scanning the code, every interaction the user had with the touch display would be tracked, and at the end of their experience they would receive an email with the exact information they went over in the interactive. At SEMA, there was hardly a digital or interactive presence, so the interactive system within the Nitto tire booth was a significant crowd draw." (see original post here written following the program debut).

Above is an image of just one of the interactives attendees will experience at the exhibit.

On Thursday, April 12, Sea Research Foundation, operator of Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn., will open its major new exhibit -- Titanic – 12,450 Feet Below -- located at Mystic Aquarium’s newly renamed Ocean Exploration Center exhibit hall.

Titanic Discoverer Dr. Robert Ballard and Former Top Disney “Imagineer” Tim Delaney, in collaboration with EWI Worldwide, took “a very different approach to the Titanic experience, one that taps directly into the excitement of exploration and discovery,” according to Delaney. “Our Titanic exhibit is awe-inspiring and emotional. It is designed to capture the moment of discovery that only access to the actual discoverer’s insight and vision can deliver. Working hand-in-glove with Bob Ballard and Sea Research has enabled us to create something that both adults and children will find thrilling, immersive, interactive, experiential and memorable. Titanic – 12,450 Feet Below takes you there.”

Digital elements, including interactive kiosks and touch-tables, enable guests to access a veritable treasure trove of information, find Titanic artifacts at the bottom of the ocean, learn about icebergs and the Titanic’s course that night, and explore over 300 separate image and video files of the underwater wreck. The high-tech tables feature the latest in multi-touch and object-recognition technology, and evoke the magic of adventure and discovery that Dr. Ballard’s expedition embodied.

Based in Mystic, Conn., Sea Research Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that operates Mystic Aquarium, Institute for Exploration and, in partnership with National Geographic Society, The JASON Project and its Immersion Learning program. For more information, visit searesearch.org and mysticaquarium.org/titanic.

This year’s North American International Auto Show was a departure from years past – both when it comes to attendance (770,932 attended this year, with the highest opening day attendance since 2005) and automaker’s exhibits.

Our design team took to the aisles to see what’s happening and what’s hot (or not), and here is what we found:

The brands are back. Companies that haven’t been around the past few years have made a comeback, and their re-emergence wasn’t always small. However, on that note, we saw that condensed kits are still around even for the seminal automakers, but didn’t seem to be doing their brands much justice.

Automakers and consumers are talking about fuel efficiency and personalization – and some of this is being reflected right into the booth themselves. EWI Worldwide client Kia turned its brand’s fuel efficiency into a driving interactive, and another interactive in the space highlighted features that could be personalized to the driver. This trend also shows signs of event marketing and the live experience becoming a larger representation of the brand and an overall marketing campaign, instead of a standalone effort.

Exhibitors are building new stands every year instead of using the same kit for 4-5 years – just look at GM and Chrysler as examples. This speaks to the European build style – and is perhaps something we all should keep an eye on for future years (and builds).

Black is the new black. And so is drywall and fabric. One short trip around the show floor revealed these materials reflected in a lot of the exhibit spaces. Not everyone did it well, but awesome forms in drywall were delivered particularly in the Audi stand. Chevy, on the other hand, was almost entirely executed with fabric.

Bring on the LEDs. LEDs are becoming a bigger part of exhibits, and BMW’s LED ceiling was a good example of this. Although not all automakers have embraced the LED trend, we expect to see more of it in future years.

Are there any trends that you saw this year that you haven’t seen in years past? Share below.

European cities host some of the largest international fairs. Some of them even have several large fairs and have thus developed enormous sites with impressive capacities. You will not be able to see all of one of them in one day; employees use cars on the grounds to get from A to B and some halls allow you to have exhibits up to the size of airplanes and ships.

Below are some of the largest sites. As a comparison, China’s largest site in Guangzhou has 340,000 sqm and Chicago’s McCormick Place offers 248,000 sqm, while the SNIEC in Shanghai has 126,500 sqm.